Horyna, Jiri (Czech Technical University in Prague), Baca, Tomas (Czech Technical University in Prague), Saska, Martin (Czech Technical University in Prague)

Autonomous Collaborative Transport of a Beam-Type Payload by a Pair of Multi-Rotor Helicopters

Scheduled for presentation during the Regular Session "Control Design V" (FrB2), Friday, June 18, 2021, 11:00−11:20, Kozani

2021 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), June 15-18, 2021, Athens, Greece

This information is tentative and subject to change. Compiled on April 23, 2024

Abstract

Collaborative payload carrying by multi-rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is presented in this paper. We propose a unique control strategy for a pair of UAVs operating with a beam-type payload that is independent of precise localization techniques or unconventional sensor equipment, allowing the system to be operable outside of the laboratory environments. The designed control system comes out with the dynamics of the coupled system, which corresponds to a bicopter aerial vehicle. Such a configuration allows for the use of estimation and control methods typical for a conventional multi-rotor aerial vehicle. The proposed master-slave control system consists of a feedback controller and an MPC reference tracker on the side of the master agent. The slave agent serves as an actuator under command of the master. In addition to the control, a system for payload detection and localization is presented. We fuse the data from RGB and depth cameras to provide sufficient conditions during payload grasping. A state machine was designed to synchronize the master-slave collaborative operations, including payload grasping or response to failure.